polka dot suitcase

I don’t know about you, but dinner conversation at Chez Polka Dot can run from non-existant to weird.

As you may or may not recall, here at the Chez, 75% of our family members are male. Unless you count the dog, in which case the odds appear better stacked at 60%. But for conversation opportunities, we’re back at 75% because the dog has an extremely limited vocabulary.

What does that mean for dinner conversation? Well, supposedly women are the chattier gender. Our dinner table is probably a good case study. As the token female, I’m usually the only one who has an interest in conversation — everyone else has their eyes on the prize, and they’re shovelling it in as fast as possible, forks just a blur from plate to mouth.

I’ve come to realize that it’s probably better to sit in silence while we eat, at least with this crew. Any utterances can sometimes be offensive. For example, “What the heck is this we’re eating?” As the designated cook, you don’t want to hear that. Or, “Hey, look, doesn’t this look like a <insert something rude here, while dangling piece of food in the air for other males to examine>?” But there are some gems in the bunch.

I’d had success with a pork fried rice (actually steamed rice but don’t tell my crew that) — pork, rice, tossed with cooked egg. It was well received and gobbled up. So I tried branching out and made chicken fried (again with the steamed) rice. All forward progress ground to a halt. It completely threw the diners for a loop. Chicken fried rice? What? Scandal! Then Sir Buffalo Sushi finally broke the tension, poking at his food with his fork. “It’s like the circle of life, right here on my plate,” he mused. “The chicken comes out of an egg, eats the rice, then we eat the chicken.”

With that decided, all heads went back down and quiet resumed.